Conservation Bulletin 70 | PDF - English Heritage

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HERITAGE CRIME The NCMD believes the current mix of enforcement and prevention strategies can provide the way forward. Existing legislation is sufficiently robust to achieve prosecutions, while better presentation of the case against illicit metal-detecting can considerably reduce its incidence.We need to ensure that opportunities for illicit metal-detecting are reduced by the promotion of the benefits of responsible metal-detecting. The promotion of negative access policies to private and institutional landowners, introduced as a part of the STOP campaigns of the 1970s and early 1980s, is now considered by the responsible hobbyists to have been the primary stimulus for the upsurge in illicit metal-detecting and nighthawking in the 1980s and 1990s.We need to avoid repeating such mistakes. ■ National Parks – tackling heritage crime in designated landscapes Ken Smith Cultural Heritage Manager, Peak District National Park Authority National Parks are this country’s premier landscape designation. Including the recently created South Downs National Park, they cover 9.3% of England’s landscape. Britain’s first National Park, in the Peak District, was established in 1951. Like its 12 English and Welsh counterparts, it has a statutory duty to conserve and enhance the natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage of its area as well as fostering the economic and social well-being of its local communities. However, designation and legislative enablement does not make National Parks immune to heritage crime. Despite their relatively remote upland character and low population densities, many of them are close to heavily populated urban areas. This means they are, if anything, more susceptible to heritage crime than other rural areas. Theft of, and damage to, heritage assets in National Parks is nothing new, nor is action to deal with it. In April 2007, several years before the formation of the Alliance to Reduce Crime Against Heritage (ARCH), the Peak District National Park Authority (PDNPA) launched Operation Blackbrook in partnership with Derbyshire Constabulary. Targeting the illegal use of rights of way by 4x4s and trail bikes, the project worked with local green-lane user groups to raise awareness about responsible use.As well as encouraging people not to use mechanised vehicles on routes where no such rights existed, it monitored The Pindale Side Vein lead mine is a powerful memorial to the back-breaking industry that once characterised the Peak District. However, trail bikes were carving up the surrounding land and the mine workings had been turned into rubbish tip.A partnership led by the Derbyshire Dales National Park has now cleared the scrins and taken preventative measures such as roadside bunding and judicious positioning of large boulders to deter further damage. © Boris Baggs the illegal use of such routes and ultimately secured prosecution of offenders. The PDNPA continues to seek to prevent heritage crime. For example, the scheduled Pindale Scrins, near Castleton, have been the focus of such activity in the past. This area of post-medieval mining remains, with its worked-out veins and waste heaps, was suffering from inappropriate (and illegal) use by trail bikes, causing erosion and damage to these important heritage assets. At the same time, the open veins were becoming filled with debris, in particular a van that had been pushed into one particularly wide open-cut. A partnership of Authority staff – rangers, farm advisers and archaeologists – and colleagues from English Heritage and High Peak Borough Council, as well as the landowner, mineral rights owner and the adjacent Hope Valley Cement Works, implemented a suite of works to repair the damage and prevent further impacts occurring. This included clearing out the open-cuts, removing the 34 | Conservation bulletin | Issue 70: Summer 2013
COMMUNITIES FIGHTING BACK derelict van and creating roadside bunds, and taking other measures to minimise the opportunities for further damaging access. Other heritage crime initiatives have included the annual engagement by NPA rangers and other staff, in partnership with the landowner, Derbyshire Constabulary and English Heritage, with those who celebrate midsummer solstice at the Nine Ladies stone circle. Again, a combination of communication, information and sheer presence has helped minimise the impact of what is, in effect, an illegal gathering. In 2012, the Peak District National Park Authority became the first NPA to sign up to the Alliance to Reduce Crime against Heritage (ARCH) and the associated Memorandum of Understanding. Engagement with ARCH has raised the profile of heritage crime within the Authority and, coupled with the initiatives that Mark Harrison has led in the East and West Midlands, has added an extra dimension to the already good working relationship that we have with our constituent authority police forces, particularly in Derbyshire. Heritage crime in National Parks takes a variety of forms. Metal theft, principally from churches, continues to be the number one crime in the Peak District, where many churches have been targeted. The thieves who stripped lead from Chelmorton church were sentenced, after pleading guilty, to 6 and 9 months’ prison terms. The sentence was helped in no small measure by the heritage crime impact statement (HCIS) that Authority staff prepared in response to the theft.This detailed the impact of the crime on the building – not just the stripping of the lead itself, but how the resulting water ingress had damaged internal plasterwork; how the community had been robbed of the use of their building; and how the crime had increased its sense of insecurity. Courts now consider these wider social and economic impacts alongside the The damaging impact of off-road vehicles on an area of leadmine remains in the Peak District National Park considered to be of national importance. © Peak District National Park Authority Graffiti defacing the Neolithic Bedd Arthur monument in the Pembroke Coast National Park. © Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority Issue 70: Summer 2013 | Conservation bulletin | 35
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